A while back, the cafeteria at work offered a grill special for a cheeseburger. I ordered the special and asked if I could have Swiss cheese.  I was told no, the special was only for American cheese.  This was in spite of the stack of Swiss cheese right in front of me (along with American, provolone, and pepper jack).  I offered to pay extra for the Swiss, but the cook held firm: only American cheese if you wanted the special.  I later took it up with the cafeteria manager, and he covered my next lunch.  That helped, but the cook clearly had not been trained to understand the customer's wants.

Yes but Bill did the Guest relations email admit their error?  Or did they pass it off on the server? (which in our world is there error in training)  The email response sounded like trying to distance themselves from the mistake.  Surely the GM of the restaurant should have been empowered to make things right at the time of the event.  For the company to say they will properly instruct the servers when it is the lack of empowerment of all employees seems a bit like passing the buck.  I'm a little surprised you accept it.  But I guess that's the power of a free appetizer card.

" I will look further into this so that none of our other guests will experience this again." This is the kind of closed loop corrective action that impresses customers and gets them to return after a bad experience--in contrast to the airlines, which keep delivering the same poor quality over and over with no indication of any effort to improve or even (in most cases) an excuse or apology.

Your story reminds me of a recent trip to Applebee's that my mother and I experienced.  After dinner, my mother wanted a hot fudge sundae, but not one of those small cup sundae's they serve; she wanted a regular size sundae.  Our waiter looked at her like she was crazy!  He pointed out all of the other great desserts they have and she very politely told him that she wanted a regular size sundae.  So, he said that he could probably find a way to put three small hot fudge sundae's into one dish, but he didn't think it would be worth it and again encouraged her to get one of their other fabulous desserts.  My mother finally said no thank you, please bring us our bill and he went away.  While he was gone, I noticed that there was a Denny's next door and told my mother that we could probably get a fine sundae from there.  The waiter came back with our bill and said that he had talked to the manager and they would figure some way to ring it up if we really wanted it.  Too little, too late!  My mom and I left and walked right next store to Denny's and had a sundae prepared just the way my mother likes and it was way cheaper too!  And by the way, the staff was so much more friendly too!  Your story reminds me of how little people seem willing to do anymore for their customer's.  Why is it so hard to think just a little outside of the box!